Begged, Borrowed, or Stolen
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: What happens when Nell finds out there is a theft of intellectual property and how can she help to correct the problem?


**A/N** This is a tribute story to Callen37 finding that two of her stories were stolen from this site and posted over at WATTPAD under a different author's name. Nell finds a way to set things right.

**A/N 2:** Although members of NCIS:DC will be mentioned, this is not a crossover story.

**Disclaimer:** As always, each and every character or place you may recognize is not owned or controlled by me. They get to come out and play with me for a short time, but have to be home by curfew.

**Begged, Borrowed, or Stolen**

It was a fairly dull day at OSP. Everyone knew what that meant - paperwork. Huge stacks of files had been waiting for everyone to come in and start working on them. Everyone on the team knew this was coming. After having three cases in a row with no time off in between, each of them knew that the wrap up reports still had to turned in to Hetty before she considered them done.

Callen just raised an eyebrow when he saw how high his stack was. Sam sat down without a word, and just started to go through the files in front of him. Kensi was inspecting every little part of her danish before she nibbled tiny pieces from it, delaying her dealing with the case files as long as possible. Deeks kept running his fingers through his hair, as he slowly worked through the file, page by page, praying to every god he knew of that Eric would make some kind of noise, any kind of noise, that would signal a new case.

Both Eric and Nell had their own stacks of files to deal with. Their computers had been set up to automatically do the searches that would keep the country safe.

As Nell closed off a file, she got a notice that her computer had automatically recognized a file with the name of G. Callen. It wasn't on any of the goverment approved sites. But, just like Eric used the plasma screen to play Mario Cart after everyone else had gone home, Nell was covertly using government resources to monitor her fan fiction sites, informing her whenever the name of one of the team would pop up. The program would then download the chapter or story into an encrypted text file that she could read whenever she could find a few free minutes, without having to worry that Hetty would catch her, although she suspected that Hetty was a closet fanfic addict herself.

This was a site that was not one of her regular ones, because it was difficult for an average person to navigate and search for the type of stories that they would want to read. But the program she wrote to identify and extract these stories was now scanning all the sites of which she was aware, and automatically stored them for her in her secret cache.

"So, was that a hit you got on one of our many constantly watched evil people or groups, intent on doing us harm?" Eric asked, eager to find something, anything to get away from the electronic filling out forms, writing up summaries, and filing them in Hetty's case log folders.

"Nope. It was nothing. Just a little glitch in the program." Nell answered, as she turned back toward her monitor and her fingers started typing even faster.

"Glitch? In a program I wrote? Ain't gonna happen, partner. What is going on?" Eric continued to press her.

"First, it isn't a program that you wrote, it is one of mine. And secondly, my program has a slight glitch in it that I am gonna have to work out." Nell wished he would just leave it alone, before Hetty heard them and would want to know what was really going on.

"Want me to take a look at it and try to get the glitch out?" Eric asked, knowing that he could spend hours on that, which was much more preferable than doing reports.

"I don't rewrite your Mario Kart programs, do I? Why should you have to rewrite mine?" she hoped that he would understand want she was really talking about.

"Oh, it's one of THOSE programs." he asked, the light bulb going off over his head.

"Yup," she said, and both of them went back to their reports for Hetty.

While on lunch she started reading the file, entitled G. Callen. In the middle of the second paragraph she realized that she had read this story before.

The little pixie went back and reread the introduction. From what Nell remembered of the original story, this new story had a synopsis that did not fit how the story would play out. She started to skim the story and see if it diverged from the one she remembered. It did not; it was the same story she remembered. But how could there be two of them - unless the same author had posted the same story on a different site. But she did not remember the introduction of her archived story being so different and not making sense according to the story, as this new one appeared to do.

By then her time for lunch was over, and she went back to work. But before she started in on her afternoon paperwork, she put a note on her tablet to investigate this mystery.

On her way home she stopped at the market and bought a couple of things for the meals that she planned to make for herself over the next few days. When she got home Nell put her groceries away and poured herself a relaxing bubble bath. She tried to completely relax and forget about all the common files she had to deal with during the day. When the water in the tub finally got cold, she pulled the plug, and turned on the shower to wash her hair, trying her new moisturizing shampoo for the first time. She liked the scent of jasmine that it left in her short cropped hair, but as far as any moisturizing benefits, she would have to wait a few days to judge that benefit. Drying herself on one of her extra large towels, she wrapped it around herself, picked up her work clothes to thrown into the laundry hamper, and went into her bedroom to change into the most comfortable clothes she had, sweats and an oversized hoodie.

Going to her kitchen, she made herself a quick green salad for supper and then went to search her NCIS:LA story files. Sure enough, there it was - a story entitled "Jack" by Callen37, that she had downloaded a few weeks earlier. Being a true analyst, she laid out the two stories together side by side on her computer and started to compare them.

The first thing that she did was to try to line up the text of each of the stories. Nell noticed that the bodies of both of the stories coincided, line by line, word by word. The only things that were different were the two introductions to the stories. Anyone with half a brain could tell by reading the introductions, that the one of these was a copy, and it was easy to tell which was the original and which was the copy. _**Check that,**_ Nell thought to herself. _**This was not a copy of one story being placed on two separate sites. No, it was a complete plagiaristic job. And worse - any fool could tell what was added to the lifted story to make it appear original. The spelling and grammar of the introduction to the second story was such that a ten year old child could do better - but in main body of the story, she suddenly improved? All her grammar and spelling, her sentence structure and punctuation had instantly become correct. Could the same person have written both the introduction and the story. NO WAY was her only conclusion.**_

Now Nell really became intrigued. Did this so called "author" just try to get away with stealing one story, or were there others that she claimed as her own. She downloaded all of her stories that were posted on Wattpad and started to compare them with the ones she had already archived. And there it was, a second story that she claimed to be her own, that she had entitled "I miss you, Kensi". Again, except for the title and introduction, this was another word for word copy of the story "Since You've Been Gone" by Callen37.

Nell shook her head and wondered how this Swaggerzzzzzzzz could expect to get away with stealing these stories and then claiming them as her own. If it were a hack writer she was stealing from, it still would not make it right, but at least it would be more understandable. Callen37 had written almost 90 stories and people knew her work. Even Nell had listed her as one of her favorite authors. How could she expect to get away with it? Yes, she posted it on a obscure site, where most fan fiction readers would not go. But someone would find out and then what would she do?

Nell went back to the WATTPAD site and looked at the reviews to see if anyone else had caught this problem. And there is was:

How come you couldn't copy the introduction to this story better from "Since you've been gone By: Callen37 that was posted on FanFiction? This is what it should have looked like -

It had been a year since Sidarov, just under a year since Kensi had gone to Afghanistan and he'd been paired up with Nell. Deeks finally found himself and something he didn't realize he was missing.

If you are going to copy something - you should at least copy the whole thing - your poor spelling in your introduction compared to the good spelling in the body of the story you copied shows everyone the hack writer that you actually are.

We know who the real author of this story is - **AND IT AIN'T YOU**

Please remove this copied story

Ok. it seems like other people recognized the theft of the story and posting of a plagiarized work. Nell decided that she wouldn't get any further involved, but just watch how it played out in the reviews on WATTPAD.

Three days later, the two plagiarized stories were still posted. There were other reviews asking that this story be taken down. Then Nell noticed that the stolen stories had been copywrited. _**OK,**_ she thought, _this is really getting serious. Someone did not just make a mistake in posting the stories. This was a definite attempt to steal the stories and present them as hers. And then to get the government to help in this deception.**_ Nell knew she had to get involved.

She checked the time and decided that it was still early enough to put in a call to the east coast. She went to her firearm lock box and pulled out a tiny little phone book that had the personal numbers of people she might have to contact away from ops. She found the phone number she wanted and dialed, wondering if he was out on a case or relaxing at home.

On the third ring, he answered, "This is Tim."

Nell ran her hand through her hair, wondering why she would do such an impetuous thing, but then decided that she had him on the line, so she might as well go through with it.

"emm, Tim, this is Nell Jones from the LA office. I'm wondering if you could help me with a little problem that I have come across?"

"Nell, I'm at home now. Can this wait till tomorrow morning and we can run it through MTAC or is it something that needs our immediate consideration?"

"No, Tim, this has nothing to do with work. It's more of a personal thing that I am working on. I know someone who has written a couple of stories, and now finds her work has been stolen by someone who claims that it is hers."

"That shouldn't be any kind of problem. All you have to do is go to a lawyer and they should be able to take of it for you."

"This person has now copywrited the stolen works, and seemingly refuses to acknowledge that they are not hers. I know that you, being an author yourself, would know more about the laws dealing with matters like this."

"Could you give me a little more detail on what is going on?" he asked.

"It's two fan fiction sites. The stories were originally posted on by Callen37. They appeared with new titles and introductions, but the exact same story on WATTPAD, supposedly written by Swaggerzzzzzzzz.

"Wait a minute, Nell. Is this the Callen37 that wrote a couple of stories about me. I like her work too, just wish she would do more stories about us here in Washington.

"Yup. She's the original author. But part of the problem, Tim, is that WATTPAD is a Canadian company and I don't know how US copywrite law works up in Canada. I know that you have a multinational publisher, that's why I decided to call you and ask for your help."

"You don't have to worry, Nell. This is something in which I have a personal stake. Things like this need to be dealt with."

"Thanks a lot, Tim. Do you have any idea of when you're coming back out here to visit. I still have a copy of your book that is waiting for you to sign it for me."

"You never know how these things are gonna work out. I'll take care of this for you, or maybe I'll just unleash my publisher on it. Anything else you need?"

"No, Tim, that's all. Thank you for taking care of it."

Two weeks later, without any fanfare, the stolen stories came down and Swaggerzzzzzzzz was left with only two stories posted. One of them, "The Day He Will Never Forget", a story about Callen and an Original Character, appeared to be original. The errors that appeared throughout the story were comparable to the two introductions she wrote to replace the stolen ones. The other one "Don't Look Down", a Deeks Kensi love story, Nell was not able to find in her archived files, but was on a level that went beyond the capabilities of this author.

Nell was home for about ten minutes when her phone rang and had a Washington, DC, return number.

"This is Nell" she answered.

"Nell, this is Tim, have you seen the WATTPAD website today?"

"I saw, the two stories I told you about have disappeared."

"It wasn't easy, and the Canadian government finally had to step in and force their hand to pull the stories."

"You didn't have to go that far, Tim." I don't want this to cause you any problems, especially with Gibbs."

"Oh it was no big deal. Gibbs didn't even find out what I was doing."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you get it done?"

"I just threatened our NCIS liaison in Ottawa with a fate worse than death."

"And that would be..."

"Have Tony transferred to run the NCISRU at Kittery, Maine."

"and why would that scare them?"

"Because that is the office that would most likely deal with our friends in Québec."

"But Tony does know French, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, but his French is so atrocious that any time he opens up his mouth, both feet automatically jump in. And rather than suffer through another major incident between Québec and the US, or even the rest of Canada, Ottawa thought it would be a whole lot easier just to have the stories taken down."

"You are devious, Tim. You would definitely fit in with the rest of us out here."

"Nah, Hetty scares me, worse than Gibbs."

"Anyway, thanks again, Tim, for all that you have done. I owe you one, big time."

"No problem, Nell. I enjoy reading the fanfiction too. Call if you need anything else."

"I will, Tim. Bye."

"You take care, Nell."


End file.
